With the Ancient requirement, I assume the answer to this question will be no, but do you think it would ever be worthwhile to reroll the main stat on an item into skill damage and just use Caldesann's Despair for the only source of main stat? So for instance you might have a helm with Vit, CC, Skill%, Socket.

Official Blizzard Quote:

- The third change is that we've removed the innate bonuses granted by Paragon levels, and players will now earn Paragon Points every time they level up. These points can then be spent to boost up various stats in four different categories: Core Stats, Offensive, Defensive, and Adventure.

Anybody else feeling like using Deadly Reach might lead to some awkward situations?

Deadly Reach Generate: 67 Spirit per attack / Project lines of pure force over a short distance for 110% weapon damage. as Physical. / Every third hit extends 25 yardshas a 30% chance to knock up enemies.

While it will offer higher EHP, the damage is just not there. The proper use of Overawe will cause the explosions from Exploding Palm to deal 98% of their life as damage to those affected by Overawe instead of just the 50% (see the Speed Palm build post for details).

Keep in mind that - unless I'm misunderstanding the description - Essence Burn deals its explosion damage based on weapon damage, not monster HP like all other EP runes:

"Instead of bleeding, the target will burn for 745% weapon damage as Fire over 9 seconds. If the target dies while burning, it explodes causing all nearby enemies to burn for 60% weapon damage as Fire over 3 seconds. This effect can happen multiple times."

Not that that invalidates using it, just thought I'd point it out.

I tried a build a couple months ago with Essence Burn, Fire Storm, Backlash, and Fire Ally along with the Sankis axe and wasn't that impressed. Granted, my Monk is pretty poorly geared to begin with, but maybe with the upcoming buffs to Legendaries it'll work a little better.

You are correct. I actually noticed that the other night when I was doing rune testing for Exploding palm. I think the burn from the explosion does stack though as it would explain why the groups seems to drop quicker the more that burn and boom. The Jury's still out for which rune is best for this build.

I've been thinking about ways to make more skills and damage types/playstyles viable. One of the ideas I keep coming back to is the concept of bleeds. I always like to see monsters' health slowly draining away rather than dropping in huge chunks at lesser intervals, so the playstyle of bleeds appeals to me. Currently, each class has one skill (unless I've missed any) that provides a bleed (note that I've only included skills that use the word "bleed." Skills that just deal damage over time aren't included.):

Rend

Impale - Chemical Burn

Exploding Palm

Hex - Painful Transformation

Spectral Blade - Deep Cuts

Bleeds are also available as an affix on weapons, such as that on Skorn. As things stand now, I'd say that only Rend and EP are used with any frequency and the damage from the weapon affix is generally considered negligible. How might bleeds become a viable source of damage then? I'll explore the question in terms of both skills and gear.

Skills
I think if I want to make bleed builds viable, there needs to be more than one source of bleed damage for any given class. Some skills could be slightly altered to change from "deals damage over time" to "causes the target to bleed." I'll get to why I think there should be a distinction between the two and why it's important shortly. For now, a couple examples might include:

Grenades - Gas Grenades (change to "Shrapnel" or similar)

Entangling Shot - Shock Collar (becomes "Barbed Wire")

Way of the Hundred Fists - Fists of Fury

More importantly, I think replacing many underused/undesirable rune effects with some kind of bleed would help with this idea:

Any of the Barb's three Primary skills could be fair game to add a bleed rune effect, as could Ancient Spear, Whirlwind, or Weapon Throw.

Demon Hunter's Chakram, Caltrops, FoK, and Spike Trap would all be obvious candidates I think

Passives could get in on the fun too. Here you'll see why I think bleed damage should be differentiated from other standard damage-over-time skills. I'm sure there's a few from each class that could possibly benefit, but I'll stick to one example for each:

Pound of Flesh - Add a flat increase to bleed damage to the skill, or increase bleed damage when you pick up a health globe, similar to the Gruesome Feast mechanic

Numbing Traps - Add "The movement speed of enemies affected by bleeds is reduced by x%"

Each time you deal damage with a bleed effect, you have a chance to gain 1 Spirit (not sure which passive I'd add this to; maybe just replace one of the plethora of useless Monk passives instead?)

I feel like these changes would give players of all classes good options to build their characters around bleeds, should they so desire. But I still don't think we'd be competitive with today's standard cookie cutter builds. That's where the gear comes in to help.

Gear
Since bleeds deal damage on set intervals and can't crit, they won't benefit from CHC/CD/AS, which most current end-game builds rely heavily upon. Average Damage would be a poweful addition to a bleeder's arsenal, but I think we'll need more to be competitive with crit builds.

I'm unclear on how weapon affix bleeds work, but I think they just deal their damage as advertised (e.g. 6339 - 9562 over 5 seconds), which is clearly not worth it. I think the best solution would be to change it to a percent of the damage caused by the strike that triggered the bleed. Otherwise, it could be changed from flat damage to a percent of weapon damage and/or increased by main stat damage bonus. Either way, weapon affix bleeds need to be more desirable.

I think the only way that a bleed build would be able to truly compete with a crit build would be to add mechanics to the game that benefit bleeds. This could come in the form of both legendaries and set bonuses, and this section will borrow heavily from my ideas on set bonuses that you can read about here (and isn't as long as this post). Some of my ideas for unique mechanics that bleeders would rely on for their damage:

When an enemy is affected by a bleed, the damage of any subsequent bleeds applied is increased by x%; OR

Enemies take x% additional damage from all attacks for each bleed effect active on them

Bleed damage ticks benefit from x% of your Life on Hit

Each time an enemy suffers reflected damage, there is a chance that it will begin bleeding for x% of the damage received over y seconds

I especially like the last idea, beacuse it opens up another realm of builds concentrating on thorns damage and/or reflective skills, such as:

I realize not all of these necessarily make a viable build, but I think some could.

I believe that a more passive, DoT-based gameplay is definitely missing from D3, and while it seems it's not the "ideal" strategy from the devs' point of view, I think many players enjoy this playstyle and it's certainly not without precedent in the Diablo franchise, as any former Poisonmancer can attest to. What do you think about the idea? Would you like to see DoT builds become more viable? Do you think that even with the changes outlined here bleed builds would be able to compete with crit builds? Post your thoughts and suggestions!

While it will offer higher EHP, the damage is just not there. The proper use of Overawe will cause the explosions from Exploding Palm to deal 98% of their life as damage to those affected by Overawe instead of just the 50% (see the Speed Palm build post for details).

Keep in mind that - unless I'm misunderstanding the description - Essence Burn deals its explosion damage based on weapon damage, not monster HP like all other EP runes:

"Instead of bleeding, the target will burn for 745% weapon damage as Fire over 9 seconds. If the target dies while burning, it explodes causing all nearby enemies to burn for 60% weapon damage as Fire over 3 seconds. This effect can happen multiple times."

Not that that invalidates using it, just thought I'd point it out.

I tried a build a couple months ago with Essence Burn, Fire Storm, Backlash, and Fire Ally along with the Sankis axe and wasn't that impressed. Granted, my Monk is pretty poorly geared to begin with, but maybe with the upcoming buffs to Legendaries it'll work a little better.

However, I think the current set bonus ideas are somewhat okay; no one is forced to use the entire set, it's mostly some class-relevant stuff and really depends on your build (!). It's nice that many different classes combine 2-3 pieces of different sets with other legendaries or rares, and no one is stuck to "omfg I need my class set so bad", like in the early stages of, WoW where it was always about getting the full 8/8 class set. I actually feel that the overall idea of set bonuses is implemented quite successfully.

I don't necessarily disagree, but this idea isn't really about "fixing" sets (as I generally agree that they're in a decent place as they are), but rather about providing build diversity through sets.

I don't consider myself on the cutting edge of D3 trends, but it seems to me that a huge amount of players complete one or two 2-piece bonuses in their gear and from there the number of players putting together sets drops dramatically for each additional piece in the set, because the Legendaries and Rares just provide more value than the higher bonus tiers on sets. Now, I don't think that equipping Legendaries or Rares over Sets is a problem per se, but the fact that there's increasingly less incentive to equip a set piece the more of that set you've already completed obviously comes down to the comparison between the set item and bonus vs. the bonuses on another item and sets right now seem to lose that decision more often than not.

We could put AS/CHC/CHD on every set item and then Witching Hour, Lacunis, and Mempos wouldn't be BiS for practically everybody like they are now, but that isn't an interesting solution and doesn't address the issue of build diversity. That's what this idea is attempting to accomplish. I don't think sets should be the only choice (like they were in WoW), but they should be a viable choice 100% of the time, should you choose to use them, and they should provide the opportunity to expand build diversity.

Set bonuses are unique in D3 in that they're pretty much the only (IMO) thing that could be subject to a huge overhaul like this without dramatically affecting the fundamental item game as it stands now.

With all the discussion surrounding itemization recently, I thought I'd pop in and share an idea I'd had regarding set bonuses. Imagine if equipping multiple pieces of a set gave you, instead of a single pre-determined set bonus, a choice of maybe 3-5 bonuses (still pre-determined) that you could choose from to be your active set bonus. These could be both general bonuses and bonuses specific to the set's intended class. Let's take the Zuni 2-piece bonus for example:

Zunimassa's Whispers
(2) Set:

+130 Intelligence (the current bonus)

+50 Resistance to All Elements

Poison skills deal 10% more damage

Increases the number of toads summoned by Plague of Toads and increases the radius of Rain of Toads

5% Chance to Fear on Hit

These are obviously just examples to illustrate the point and not necessarily meant to be "balanced" (that's not my job!). Higher bonus tiers could provide increasingly powerful bonuses (something that I feel is lacking from many current sets, where the 2-piece bonus is frequently as good as or better than the higher bonuses), which would help to incentivize players to actually complete sets or make a choice between the potential bonuses and another item, without decentivizing players from equipping a couple pieces of another class's set.

As you can see in my Zuni example, this could also incorporate a variety of interesting skill effects that aren't available anywhere else in the game. This would allow Blizzard to vastly increase build diversity through the item game without having to add a ton of new items or fundamentally change existing items themselves (i.e. the base items of the sets). What if Tal's set had the option to increase the number of active Hydras by 1 on each bonus tier? Would a Hydra-centric build become viable with 4 active at once?

You could change your chosen set bonuses at any time and this would act as another good gold sink. I'd think maybe something around 1mil gold each time; not back-breaking for most players at this point, but significant enough to cause you to consider whether or not you really want to change.

What do you think of the idea? Is there anything you'd add or change? What would be some ideas for cool, unique set bonuses?

I guess everybody just blindly assumes Manticore is the best? None of those items are super high-end rolls, but let's actually look at the numbers, since all claims here are that Manticore is best for crit damage (according to the build he linked, he's not using Archery):

So, basically, if you use your Hand Xbows over Manticore, you gain 100% CD (or 50% CD and 10% Crit Chance if you were to pick up Archery), 841 LoH, and a good bit of attack speed. The crit chance from Archery could be made up by your quiver, but you're not getting CD or LoH on a quiver, so it seems to me that your Hand Xbows are always going to be better. (Granted, I'm no expert...if you're really curious for the "correct" answer, I'd recommend finding a good DPS calc and plugging everything in there.)

Of course, DPS can be increased further with an attack speed roll, but the weapon damage (which is what we'd be looking at for cooldown-based skills) will stay the same. (For reference, all 2H weapons with these perfect rolls are +/- 10 DPS of the hammer.) Add on to that a possible:

Some people are already discussing Topazes above, but the move away from MF on gear in the future has me wondering what Topaz will do in helms...

Also, I have to say I'm not crazy about the Paragon Levels portrait graphics thing. Isn't this the exact kind of thing they told us we'd be getting for our banner? Why invent some new portrait thing that lots of people are never going to see (most people are still playing single-player) instead of giving us something cool to customize our banners (which we see every time we log in)? I realize it's a small matter, but I wonder if they just forgot about banners...?

I'm assuming this refers to non-weapon offhands, so I haven't included it in the following calculations. If it can occur on shields, the 17% would outweigh the 15% dual-wield bonus, along with the considerable defensive benefits, and would probably be the better option.

Armor

This means that the maximum IAS from gear is (17*5)=85%.

I've done a little more digging over at D3Inferno and it would appear that my numbers above aren't exactly correct. From what I can tell, there are actually two separate means for increasing your attack speed:

If this information is correct (which might be a bit of an assumption; we'll have to wait and see) we could get up to 184% IAS and +0.7 APS from gear alone.

There are a couple ways this could work, I think:

Bonuses on the weapon affect it before the bonuses on other gear
In this case, we'd be looking at ((1.4*1.25)+0.25)=2 APS
Then, adding in the rest of your gear, ((2*2.59)+0.45)=5.63 APS
Finally, the IAS from skills: (15[Dual Wield]+15[Blazing Fists]+8[Transgression]+3[Focused Mind])=41%

5.63*1.41=7.938 APS

All attack speed bonuses are applied at the same time
Gear: ((1.4*2.84)+0.7)=4.676
Skills: 4.676*1.41=6.593 APS

I dunno...that seems really high, especially in the first scenario. However, it does require 13 pieces of perfectly rolled gear, so it's not exactly easy to attain at any rate. Food for thought...

Just for fun, if 7.938 APS is accurate (I have my doubts), then Faith in the Light's 30% Holy Damage per attack for 3 seconds would equate to

This is my favorite Monk build that I've come up with or seen from others so far. It focuses on increasing attack speed as much as possible. Here's the build: http://us.battle.net...YiXS!YZX!ZaccbZ

Way of the Hundred Fists: Blazing Fists
This is obviously the core of the build. Decent damage at 140% and crits increase your attack speed by up to 15%.

Lashing Tail Kick: Vulture Claw Kick
This is the only "spammable" Spirit spender that I really like, and the rune changes it to a 360-degree PBAoE and bumps the damage up a little bit. Not too bad.

Blinding Flash: Faith in the Light
A pretty decent defensive cooldown, but the rune effect is great for this build, as it really synergizes with the IAS we'll be stacking. With maximum possible IAS, this defensive cooldown turns into an ability that will cause well over 300% weapon damage.

Sweeping Wind: Cyclone
Sweeping Wind is a cool "set and forget" type of ability that will hopefully be fairly easy to keep going constantly with this build's high attack speed. I'm not really sure how useful Cyclone will be, but since this build will need a decent amount of crit chance as well, it seems like a cool option. Inner Storm is a good alternative if Cyclone turns out to not be great.

Breath of Heaven: Blazing Wrath
Like Blinding Flash, this is another good defensive cooldown with an offensive upside from the rune.

Mantra of Retribution: Transgression
The key to choosing this Mantra is the Transgression rune, which ties into the build theme with an additional 8% IAS (that also extends to any party members - I like to think it'll make us popular with our Frenzy Barb friends!). It's certainly possible that Conviction could be better for this build, but I'm sticking with the theme for now.

PassivesTranscendence: A nice bit of healing when using Spirit spending abilities.Resolve: Should be no problem to keep all the monsters around me debuffed at all times thanks to Sweeping Wind.Seize the Initiative: More defensive utility from increasing offensive power. 'Nuff said.

This build will likely be highly gear dependent to be fully utilized, since we'll need to stack as much IAS as possible and keep a crit chance of at least ~20% to make sure the Blazing Fists buff doesn't fall off. According to the game files, the max haste bonus is 17% and can occur on 5 item types:

Amulet

Gloves

Rings (x2)

Offhand

I'm assuming this refers to non-weapon offhands, so I haven't included it in the following calculations. If it can occur on shields, the 17% would outweigh the 15% dual-wield bonus, along with the considerable defensive benefits, and would probably be the better option.

Armor

This means that the maximum IAS from gear is (17*5)=85%. So our IAS situation looks about like this:

According to Blizzard's game guide, all high-end fist weapons have a 1.4 attack speed, so using that as our base, we can get up to (1.4*2.26)=3.164 attacks per second in solo play and as much as (1.4*2.53)=3.542 with the correct group.

I might come back and crunch some more skill-specific numbers tomorrow, but it's getting to be about bedtime...in the meantime, what do you all think? I'd love to hear any feedback!

Well we can't know for sure, but based on precedent from WoW, taunts don't have any effect in PvP - nor should they. Unfortunately, human players have this pesky free will and I don't know of a way you could force a taunt on a player without completely removing their control of the character. In either case, Earth Ally is still a decent choice for PvP for the Life bonus. Also, I don't think Retaliation will reflect spell damage, so it will be useful against DH, but not so much Wiz/WD.

Beacon of Ytar reduces the CD on BoH by 2.25 seconds and Serenity by 3 seconds. Obviously it's up to you, but I think you could find a better use for that passive slot.

You won't be able to rely on your cooldowns to take care of everything for you in D3. Obviously we can only speculate at this point, but we know that within boss fights, there are mechanics to recover health, generally tied to "phases" of the encounter. If you completely rely on spike damage from your long cooldowns, you won't be able to sustain the damage necessary to trigger these phases and survive the boss encounters, IMO.

Not to mention the points that everyone else has already made about it being incredibly boring and inefficient for regular mobs.

Bosses in Diablo 2 regenerated their health. I don't see why they wouldnt in D3.
Then again, there was an attribute called "Prevent Monster Heal" in Diablo 2 that we havent seen yet, but it was something that only appeared on uniques and sets, that we have no information about.

You could get Prevent Monster Heal on any magic+ melee weapon in D2 with the suffix "Vileness."

show me the slightest bit of evidence to substantiate YOUR claims? my argument is merely your theory is no more valid then mine or anyoen elses until release and no your assumptions on whats going on in a video is NOT evidence. your funny kid. really. using speculation to back up speculation is truly histerical

I'm sorry...explain to me again how an argument based on clear evidence is no more valid than one based on pure, asinine speculation? You can watch how the monsters react to the wall and none of their behavior is consistent with your arguments. You can deny video of the skill as evidence all you want, but it won't make you right.

then it makes them even slower. you cant be assured by ANYTHING until you actually test it yourself there buddy. stop acting like your speculation is somehow not speculatioon because of a video. anything short of absolute proof such as personal testing or a blue post is just your opinion. they dont attack the wall BECAUSE they can walk around it. now if the wall traps them or is blocking their path THEN they would attack it. obviously. and the video doesnt prove that either. nice try.

ya but its just so funny how thick you are so i gotsta

The amount of irony in your closing statement is almost unbelievable. My assumptions are based on visual evidence from the video that Blizzard has posted. Yours are based on grasping at straws when you don't want to lose an argument where the evidence is clearly stacked against you. Show me the slightest bit of evidence anywhere that an unruned Wall of Zombies slows enemies. Show me the slightest bit of evidence anywhere that mobs can attack the wall. Best of luck.

this^. *gasp* why? because its faster to walk around the wall UNIMPEDED then have to chop your way through the wall on the shorter line. herpderp. like i said. i NEVER said the wall was able to be walked through at the same pace as walking around. i said they might be able to walk through it much slower OR hack their way through it. either way (like i said, again) its faster for them to walk around it to which this video proves neither my theory or yours.

There's a rune for Wall of Zombies that causes it to slow enemies. Therefore we can be assured that the base spell (which is seen in the video) doesn't slow them. You watch 3 monsters walk along the wall, die by it, and never once attack the wall, yet you still assume that the wall can be attacked. The only thing this video proves is that the wall can't be walked through, which has been my point since post #2 of this thread. It's a wall.

lol..... its like you guys completely ignored the part where i said it still could be destructible and them walking around changed nothing because their AI would make them walk around it in either case. because why would a mob go and attack it if they can walk around it and get to u faster? they wouldnt. it could just as much be that then not destructible. the video, again, proves neither side of the argument. still gotta wait for release fellas

I actually didn't ignore it and went so far as to take this handy screenshot to show you what you're arguing. Basically - and correct me if I'm wrong here - you've said multiple times in this thread that the blue line in this image is shorter than the red line. I'm not sure how you could honestly believe that.

Instead of arguing over what wall of zombies is/isn't or what it does/doesn't, just post a thread on the official forums in the correct section (WD) and with any luck a blue post will pop up and solve all the hush hush..

You do that...gl.

The video is pretty clear though, so Idk why you would waste your time.

Not that I feel like arguing, but if the video is so clear why is there about 30 different opinions on how this spell works in this thread. It's obvious not everyone is on the same page, so its not a waste of my time.

This thread is like 6 months old, and that video is brand new.

That still doesn't change the fact that no one still has no real idea. Blizzard have posted a new video of it on the website yeah, but that doesn't mean everyone knows how it works.

Except that you can see how it works in the video and how monsters react to it. The first 10 pages of this thread didn't have that video to go on. It's pretty clear now how it works (or at least it should be, unless you just don't want to see it).

Right, but there were 3 mobs that interacted with the wall. Watch the behavior of the other two, specifically when the WD runs back towards the top of the screen and the right mob turns down and walks around the bottom edge of the wall - not through it.

Well, I think it's a little early to judge. Diablo is supposed to be a fast-paced game, but we don't really know how long it'll take to kill a pack of regular monsters in Hell or Inferno, let alone Champion packs or bosses. Caltrops has a pretty short duration (6sec) so doubling that to 12 still doesn't necessarily exclude fast-paced action. Marked for Death would double to a minute, which would be great for the Contagion rune or, in the case of Valley of Death, doubles to 30sec, which is pretty good for an AoE straight damage increase. It doesn't seem that useful for Sentry, going from 20 -> 40, but any way you skin it, it means you have to cast/recast the affected spells half as often, which means more Disc savings.

For most builds though, you're probably right. It's a good passive for some specific builds though I think.

Spike TrapGenerateCost: 430 Hatred / Lay a trap that arms after 1.2 seconds and triggers when an enemy approaches. The trap does 135275% weapon damage to all enemies within 8 yards. / You can have a maximum of 3 Spike Traps active at one time.

Long Fuse : Increases the arming time to 2 seconds but increases damage to 182371% weapon damage.

Sticky Trap : Plant a bomb on an enemy rather than on the ground. If the target dies within 30 seconds, the trapbomb explodes dealing 196404% weapon damage to all enemies within 8 yards.

"The duration of your Caltrops, Marked for Death, Spike Trap, and Sentry is increased by 100%."

I find the fact that whirly blade damage-per-second kind of trap, but from what we've seen of the skill recently, it just blows up after the short arming time is up and an enemy approaches. It doesn't really have a duration to increase. There's a whole lot of ways Custom Engineering could still affect Spike Trap; what would you like to see? What do you think we'll actually see?

Personally, I think the last option is, unfortunately, the most likely outcome. However, of the other options, I think increased hatred generation or increased damage radius would probably be most likely. It's difficult to say how useful the reduced arming time would actually be (1.2 sec isn't that long), but it could be beneficial if you're using fast weapons and can spam it more. Straight increased damage is kind of blase and would have to affect all the different rune variants as well. Increased maximum number of traps would be awesome, but I think it would be a little OP and push Scatter even further towards the best rune (4 traps at once would equal 540% weapon damage per cast; miles ahead of almost any DH skill, let alone Hatred generators).

since this thread is about sweeping wind I'll aska few questions of my own :-)

1) post patch 15 (as mentioned in the unofficial notes) does sweeping wind now a SPENDOR instead of generator ?

2) based on same notes , can you activate SW right of the bat and use a mellee generator to refresh SW and build its stacks without the need to recast it ?

3) assuming the answer to the last question is yes and you decide to choose inner storm for the +spirit , does as long as you hit with a mellee generator you gain 9 (6 base for the generator and 3 for the inner storm rune) spirit ?

and one last question (not SW related) , does the game have health potions/rejuv and do they have a CD like WoW does ?

thanks for your info

Yes to questions 1 and 2 and the health potion question.

As to question 3, Inner Storm generates 3 Spirit per second when the SW buff is at max stack. It doesn't actually have anything to do with how often you hit with your other generators, so it's not as simple to say you'll get 9 Spirit from your generators instead of 6. But...the spirit of your assumption is correct in that you'll generate more Spirit more quickly with the Inner Storm buff.

The tooltip doesn't say how often it hits for 50% weapon damage, but my guess is that it's based on weapon speed like every other skill.

Based on the description and the nature of the skill, I kind of assume it has nothing to do with weapon speed and will damage enemies any time you pass through them while channeling the spell. With this assumption in mind, I came up with this build that essentially aims for maximum possible movement speed so you can run through things more often: http://us.battle.net...UdZk!bYc!ZZabab

Assuming all buffs (Blazing Fists/WotFS) are active, we're looking at 80% increased movement speed while channeling TR (assuming movement buffs are additive). Air Ally and Chant of Resonance are there to provide extra Spirit for channeling TR (though Air Ally was a hell of a lot better before Patch 13 too) and Transcendence provides some nice healing while channeling. I don't know if the 5% on Wind Through the Reeds is really worth it; there might be a better rune and/or mantra choice there, but I've included it for the sake of the build's "theme."

This was (basically) the same thought that I had when I read about the new rune system. The problem I have with the rune system as it stands now is that it essentially makes builds that rely on particular rune effects completely unviable until that/those rune effect(s) are unlocked - which in some cases isn't until the 50s. If the Crimson rune for Mantra of Evasion doesn't come unlocked until level 40 (I don't know the actual level...I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but just using it as an example) it basically negates a dodge Monk as a viable leveling build.

I think Rune Points are a good solution to this issue: it allows players to get the runes they want/need to make their build as soon as possible. I don't feel like having restrictions to which runes you can choose, like the OP suggested (only 1 per skill?) is really necessary, but there could be trouble with learning curves and new players wasting their rune points. Therefore, maybe the system could remain how it is in "tutorial" mode and rune points would only be available if the player chose to play in Elective mode? It's also a great compromise for the players who miss getting to do something/put a point somewhere when they level without being a stifling system.

I can't help but agree with most of everything that Sabvre is posting and wonder why so many go against him. He makes fine points. The forums are spammed beyond moderation. The topics are not things we've talked about "months ago" like you pointed out Dae, but are in fact things we talk about on a daily basis.

I mean LOOK at it. "Skills your gonna miss" was posted 2 hours ago three consecutive times and it hasn't been deleted? NO one saw that from the moderation? Even if it wasn't reported? Really?

I agree the forums have gotten pretty spammy, but the crux of his argument is that DFans is ignoring the "old, loyal" fan base in favor of bringing a bunch of one-post wonders to the forum, which is obviously not the case. From what I understand, each key is given away individually by one of the mods (there's no automation of it). Who's to say that they aren't all giving away 3 or 4 keys to older members for each one they give to a newer member? And even if that's not the case, is Sabvre's sense of entitlement to a beta key for having been here for a while any different than someone who just joined looking for one? At the end of the day, they're just two guys who want a beta key. Sure, Sabvre's been here a while without the promise of beta, but that has no effect on whether he is or will be a more valuable member of the community. The past is past...thanks for your contributions, but who's to say these new posters who are joining for this contest won't be equally (or more) valuable in a month or a year? Sure, there will probably be a few keys handed out to people who will never post again, but you or me or any other veteran poster could just as easily cut and run once we get our key. I understand the new poster prejudice to a degree, but this kind of thing happens every time we get a big new influx of users (for whatever reason), and it's just...misplaced.

I know I personally awarded a few older members keys through the random drawing.

The fact of the matter is, Curse runs this site. Curse is a business. Curse is going to use their keys to do what's best for their business and for this site. In all liklihood, that doesn't include giving keys to ungrateful whiners with some kind of false sense of entitlement. It does include driving a shit ton of new traffic to the site. I've been posting on this site for over two years (and lurking for a while longer) and was staff for all but 3-4 months of that time. I was even promised a beta key by Sixen when I didn't get one in the first wave that we got. How many of you "veteran posters" who are whining about how this contest is being run can say that? (For the record, I still don't have a beta key and haven't asked for one.)

Point being, get off your high horses and try to be constructive and welcoming to the new members and you might have a better chance of being picked. Whining about the contest won't get you anywhere.

Resentful Spirit is damage oriented, in the example raise damage to 103% per second. Not so bad.

Eh, 103% damage per second? When you can usually cast 120%+ skills per second? I guess it's okay.

You're missing the point...what's better? Casting that one 120% skill 3 times (360%) or casting Haunt once and then that 120% twice (309% + 240% = 549% over the same duration). The choice is clear, especilly considering the fact that Haunt, in all likelihood, costs less mana than that 120% skill.

Official Blizzard Quote:

One good reason why it's not a feature we like the idea of is that it adds a new type of play complexity that we don't want to layer on top of those that we already have. We're creating the game, the skills, the movement speed, kill rates, skill runes, and all other combat related mechanics and features to fit as tightly together as possible. Throwing in weapon swapping forces that tightening/balancing to take it into account. Only thing is that it's not a clear cut feature. You either know how to game it - or you don't. So it creates a separation of players that isn't based on use of the character and skills but doing this weird little trick and swapping back and forth between weapons at specific times. It becomes a necessity to remain effective or as a strong opponent, and we believe the combat has enough going for it that it doesn't need difficult to explain and understand features like weapon swapping.

I know this is probably the wrong audience to try to make that argument to, because most of you are on the winning end. But trust us that there will be plenty of separation between you and the noobs to show how awesome you are without weapon swapping.

You also have the issues of it just being used for storage, which feels super cheesy. Or as a means to game MF by swapping in weapons to get 0mgz uber dropz.

@Fice, I like your build, the only issue I see is that the Sweeping Wind Vortex buff only lasts 5 seconds and is only applied on the 3rd strike, so it doesn't seem like it will be easy (or even possible?) to keep it fully stacked while also taking advantage of Tempest Rush. With that in mind, I've replaced it with Indigo Exploding Palm - imagine throwing out 5 bleeds and then Tempest Rush to chain all the explosions!

I've also replaced the Mantra with Retribution, if only for the sake of conversation. If you're TR'ing through a big pack of monsters, it seems reasonable to assume that they're going to be hitting you multiple times per second, which would make the Golden Rune there much more efficient for gaining Spirit compared to Healing's flat rate per second. On the flip side, of course, it reduces your survivability and is only effective "in combat."

I've also added Blinding Flash and Breath of Heaven as more of utility skills runed to increase damage. One of them could - and probably should - be replaced with a good skill for single-target damage (probably either WotHF or Lashing Tail Kick). Blinding Flash doesn't necessarily play well with Mantra of Retribution since the idea is to get hit, though it's probably better than Breath of Heaven if you go with Mantra of Healing.

basically this is a HC build.. any BEST 1-hander wep you can find, and a good shield
u start off by sticky bombing the first enemies, then you throw up the sentry/chakram shield
use fan of knives for extra dps/escape stun, and maelstorm inbetween normal attacks to heal up/kill ranged
and finally keep up constant shadow power (insane 30% attack speed/40% dodge) to tank big things

I like the spirit of the build, but I think there's room for a few improvements here:

A.) I'm not sure if you'll be able to use any arrow skills if you don't have a ranged weapon equipped (it wouldn't work from a common sense standpoint, but there isn't anything indicating that it requires a ranged weapon. Maybe someone in beta could confirm?) Maelstrom would definitely be awesome if it works, but I don't see that happening.

B.) You have Cull the Weak, but your only slow comes from Fan of Knives, which only has a 40% uptime max (assuming you spam it on every CD).

C.) Shadow Power is great, but with a 20 Disc. cost and only an 8 sec. buff, I doubt you'll be able to keep it up constantly. Maybe replacing Cull the Weak with Perfectionist would help here, but I still think it won't be able to be kept up constantly.

D.) While Sticky Trap is good for damage, it looks like it will probably reduce the rate at which you can gain Hatred from the skill, since you can only have 3 out at once and you have to wait for the enemy to die to plant another. With Spike Trap being your only Hatred generator, I think that would most likely become a problem.

E.) I could be totally wrong here, but I think it will be folly for a HC melee DH to rely on a stun with a lengthy CD for escape/survivability. I think you're going to have to work either Vault or Smoke Screen into your build for when you get in over your head.

With Impale being reworked to a thrown knife instead of a bow shot, I'm assuming at least some of its rune effects will change. If not, I think Golden Impale will be way better than Grenades.

Basically you can spam Grenades (or Impale) and Spike Trap in between auto-attack while hitting Fan of Knives when it's off CD and keeping your Shuriken Cloud up.

Caltrops provides a nice damage boost (Cull the Weak) and crit increase (Bait the Trap) while also providing damage reduction (Numbing Traps), so it should be kept active all the time as well.

I think any of the Discipline skills could slide nicely into the 6th skill slot. I like Golden Preparation for the "oh shit!" button, but it does have a long CD. Mobility in Vault or Smoke Screen, extra damage and healing or damage reduction from Sentry, Marked for Death (Obsidian runed), Companion, Shadow Power...all are good options that this build would make great use of.

Definitely an interesting idea; would be cool if it worked! I really like to the looks of the skill for a PvP build too. Something like this would be a great control/debuffer/support build I think, and it has great survivability though it's definitely lacking in damage of its own.

Well it's a gimmicky build obviously. It's definitely never going to be the most powerful build you'll see around here. I just thought the Umbral Shock/Soul Harvest combo (511% WD AoE) was kind of interesting. The CD on Spirit Walk and Soul Harvest are 13 sec. with the Spirit Vessel passive and you also have Dogs and Haunt to fill the gaps between CDs with the build as I suggested it. The other 4 skills could really be used for anything: single target damage, Gargantuan, better CC, whatever.

Basically the idea with this build would be to find a group of monsters (preferably a big one) and throw out a few Haunts, Mass Confusion, and then run into the group and pop Spirit Walk. Immediately after you Spirit Walk, cast Soul Harvest. Soul Harvest deals 275% weapon damage as AoE around you and will also cause the Spirit Walk to end, procing Umbral Shock for an additional 236% AoE. All that damage is also increased by Mass Confusion (and, after the first time, by the Soul Harvest buff) as well as the Pierce the Veil passive. If anything is still left alive, you should be able to finish them off rather quickly or, if there's still lots of monsters around, you can pop Sacrifice to take them down (and increase your damage even more for the next group). Thoughts?

I get that, but there are plenty of ways to handicap yourself or make weird, challenging builds that are less...boring than nothing but auto-attack. Why not limit yourself to all Golden (or any other) Runes? Or only rank 1 Runes? Or maybe something like only using skills that cost no mana?

I dunno...maybe auto-attack is fun in your opinion, but if it's just extra challenge that you're after, it seems like there are more exciting ways to get it done. /shrug

D3maniac, throughout this thread, you've consistently argued each and every point with "lol, you're retarded, I can't believe I'm arguing with these kids, lol so stupid" while rarely addressing any actual arguments made against your point. We're over 170 posts now and you're still the only person who's called another poster a retarded child. Do you think that lends credence to your argument? If you want anyone to take your opinion seriously, try respecting theirs first. No one has a problem with the fact that you have your own opinion. We all think it's wrong and we're trying to present our opinions so that you can see why we disagree with yours, but no one has said you're stupid for having a differing opinion. You're still the only person who has resorted to name-calling. Think about it.

What's the point of Vision Quest? There's only two spells that cost mana, both with a CD, so I don't think the extra mana regen there will be useful at all. I'd take Blood Ritual for the life regen instead.

Anyway, I don't see the amusement in purposefully limiting yourself to nothing but auto-attack throughout the entire game, but to each his own I suppose...good luck!

Edit: Okay, I've made myself a Wiki user profile (why are there two separate logins for forums and wiki editing?) and I'm going to start compiling some lists. Please let me know if I screw anything up and how I can fix it!

Yup, the log-in's for the forums and the wiki aren't connected.

Also, don't worry about screwing up; it's a wiki! There's nothing you can do that can't be undone.

Pretty sure he meant everybody who entered the thread. Not everyone on the site.

Anyway, I asked like 20 of my friends and they all said "lol he's a newb what a newb" and then I called my incredibly gorgeous girlfriend and she said I was totally right and the fact that I owned some newb in an argument on a video game forum really turned her on. It was awesome.

See? I can make shit up too!

oh nos! some kid on a D3 forum thinks im lying! wtf em i gon do? and he doesnt like me. oh noz i fails.

4-5 people on a random D3 forum disagreeing with me is hardly "everyone". considering during this argument i got RL opinions from about 14 other people. posted it on FB and 7 other people on there. and every single one agreed with me and said it was common sense. and none of them were 16 which is probably most of the people disagreeing. regardless of how old they say they are. so i know I'm right. i really dont care what random troll kids on a D3 forum say, lmao.

Pretty sure he meant everybody who entered the thread. Not everyone on the site.

Anyway, I asked like 20 of my friends and they all said "lol he's a newb what a newb" and then I called my incredibly gorgeous girlfriend and she said I was totally right and the fact that I owned some newb in an argument on a video game forum really turned her on. It was awesome.

if the zombie wall gets longer with rune on release. i will obviously feel beaten and dumb.

if the zombie wall doubles in width... like it says... lolol. im going to make you all eat your words, so block me now if you dont want it rubbed in your face, feel free to rub it in mine if your right on release.

Yeah, I realized that you were mainly talking about channeled spells after I posted.

Most of these skill balance systems are fairly new, changing recently from flat damage. I'd assume that by the time the game actually ships, those "every x seconds" kind of skills will have green text in them and the frequency of damage application will be based on weapon speed as well. Otherwise you're right, those skills take the choice of weaponry away from the player, which is not something they're looking to do obviously.

This is so pointless. Blizzard has stated they want all builds to be viable yes? If indeed WD's MUST use pets for Inferno in the current implementation (which I HIGHLY doubt) -they will change it so that is not the case-.

Besides, all you have is a calculator build. Get to Inferno on your WD and come back with actual proof.

P.S. You didn't include Crimson Soul Harvest which is a ridiculous survival ability for the WD.

I made all three of those points back on the first page. Unfortunately for us, they aren't arguments in our dear, omnipotent OP's eyes.

the insults were because people who are retarded and think they are right while arguing with illogical reasoning need to be told they are retarded.

OMG...the irony...it's so delicious! Om nom nom. Thinking before you type (which clearly isn't your strong suit based on the 3 pages that have popped up in this thread since I was last on) might be something for you to consider you know...at some point.

D3maniac, you say your points are based on common sense and observation of skill mechanics in beta, but your blatant disregard for all logic concerning Zombie Wall makes me have to take your notion of "common sense" with a very large grain of salt.

all the skills i listed have been show cased or seen in the beta so that is NOT speculation. there IS a way to know if its mandatory... looking at all of his skills, calculating, using common sense. all make it 10x more valid then just saying "oh i THINK this will do this.." thats not what i did or im doing. ive taken careful time to look at each skill and deduce the possible outcomes, coming to an ultimate conclusion that they seem almost entirely mandatory for solo. it is very calculated speculation, but labeling it "pure speculation" is far from what it actually is.

OK, I'm not sure what having seen a skill in beta or another video has to do with determining its viability in Inferno. Let's boil it down to the core issue. I'd like you to specifically argue this point that I made:

There's no way to know that pet skills will be mandatory for Inferno without having played in Inferno without them and miserably failed.

There's no reason to assume that Blizzard would balance this class (or Inferno) such that any skills are an absolute necessity. That goes counter to their entire philosophy behind player customization in this game.

because why would you care to DOUBLE the width if it can't be walked through? making an extra half inch for mobs to get around it?

It would be significantly more than a half inch. And yes, that's exactly why. The longer they take to walk around it, the longer you have to pelt them with spells before they become a danger to you. Why would you care to double the width if it CAN be walked through?

ah but its not pure speculation. its backed up with facts about the skills and how they work. much less speculation then "zombie wall makes you LEET".

The entire premise of this thread is pure speculation. There's no way to know that pet skills will be mandatory for Inferno without having played in Inferno without them and miserably failed.

Also, I never argued that "zombie wall makes you LEET." I simply pointed out that it's a CC spell that you didn't include in your list of "Skills for surviving" in the OP. Are you really arguing that Wall of Zombies wouldn't help you survive?

The only video we've seen (that I know of) featuring Wall of Zombies is the original announcement trailer, and there's nothing there that would lead me to believe that enemies can walk through it.

What about the term "wall" makes you assume that enemies can just walk through it? And when did I ever mention its damage? Unfortunately for you, if you want to make this thread, you can't discount speculation in others' arguments since that's all the discussion you're going to get (not to mention that your OP is entirely speculation).

WD skills for surviving WITHOUT pets, yes these can be runed to make them better or have less of a cool down but not so much better to make them worth not having zombie dogs or gargantuan. not even close. pets are 10x > then these. but pets used in CONJUNCTION with these makes him super awesome.

No love for Wall of Zombies, the one skill that literally and directly prevents enemies from getting close to you? Nothing we've seen indicates that the wall can be attacked (so it's guaranteed to be up for 5 seconds), it has no cooldown, and enemies can't pass through it. Did I mention you can rune it to slow enemies or to double its width? Couple it with Grasp of the Dead and enemies will be sitting ducks ready for you to spam your damaging skills.

I agree that his survival passives are somewhat lacking, but I think he has way better Life restoration capabilities through Runes than any other class (Alabaster Grasp/Spirit Walk, Crimson Haunt/Spirit Barrage/Soul Harvest, Golden Hex/Firebats, etc.).

Don't forget also that most of his CC spells are - or can be runed to be - damaging spells as well. Overall, I think that playing without pets will be somewhat of a hindrance, but it doesn't seem as bad as you're making it out to be.

I'm going to start a singleplayer char!(possibly a hc one, im a hc virgin)
I've been playing diablo 2 since day 1 but only online, and there hasn't been alot of soling to be honest, and now i dont feel that those mandatory superbuilds that i've already tried out, are as funny as they should be, SO:

I did the same thing a while back! Got a couple characters killed and then kind of burned out on my third.
One of the builds that I tried that was a lot of fun was a Rabies Druid. It's very challenging to kill bosses with, but regular mobs start going down pretty easy before too long. Pro tip for SP: remember /players 8 !!

They've said skills like Zombie Wall won't be able to be used for griefing (i.e. trapping a "teammate" in a corner with a bunch of mobs) because there's no collision for spell effects on friendly players. I'd assume the same would be true for summons.

2) From the skill description it reads as if Alabaster runed EP had the cadaver explosion (% of HP) removed. Is that correct? If so, that would make this combination completely useless compared to Indigo runed EP, hell, even regular EP. What am I missing here?

Alabaster Rune causes the bleed effect to "jump" to all other nearby targets if the original target is killed while bleeding. With the Rank 4 Rune, the jumping bleeds do 70% weapon damage per second for 2 seconds (total 140%) and, if those targets die, the bleed can jump again and again and again. Basically, the mechanic is similar, except the damage is done over time with Alabaster instead of up front with the base skill and, unlike the base skill, it can self-propagate. Also, since Alabaster's damage is based on weapon damage instead of monster HP, it's more consistent, though, depending on the monster that gets exploded, possibly less (or more) powerful. So it's definitely not useless.

Official Blizzard Quote:

- The third change is that we've removed the innate bonuses granted by Paragon levels, and players will now earn Paragon Points every time they level up. These points can then be spent to boost up various stats in four different categories: Core Stats, Offensive, Defensive, and Adventure.

Anybody else feeling like using Deadly Reach might lead to some awkward situations?

Deadly Reach Generate: 67 Spirit per attack / Project lines of pure force over a short distance for 110% weapon damage. as Physical. / Every third hit extends 25 yardshas a 30% chance to knock up enemies.

Of course, DPS can be increased further with an attack speed roll, but the weapon damage (which is what we'd be looking at for cooldown-based skills) will stay the same. (For reference, all 2H weapons with these perfect rolls are +/- 10 DPS of the hammer.) Add on to that a possible:

Some people are already discussing Topazes above, but the move away from MF on gear in the future has me wondering what Topaz will do in helms...

Also, I have to say I'm not crazy about the Paragon Levels portrait graphics thing. Isn't this the exact kind of thing they told us we'd be getting for our banner? Why invent some new portrait thing that lots of people are never going to see (most people are still playing single-player) instead of giving us something cool to customize our banners (which we see every time we log in)? I realize it's a small matter, but I wonder if they just forgot about banners...?

I only use Macs occasionally at work, but I think if you open up the image in Preview or whatever it's called, you should just be able to use Grab (Applications -> Utilities) to take a "screenshot" of a specific part of the image, which it will then save as a separate file.

i think this would be a good compromise as well. how about the crafted lv 7 rune will also have 1 of the 5 attributes of the 5 salvaged runes lol. That way it'll actually matter to an extent what kind of lv 7 runes.

ie. if you salvage runes with good attributes, you're rune will have one of those good attributes.

Well, I'm not really sure that's feasible from a design standpoint. The game's not going to keep track of the stats that were on the rune that the Super Rune Dust 7 (or whatever you want to call it) came from. I think any stats should still be random. In fact, I think it would actually make more sense if crafted Runes didn't have stats on them at all, so there would still be a sense of prestige and a reason to find your Runes instead of craft them. But it wouldn't be so difficult to get the Rune effect you're looking for, so you can still take luck somewhat out of the equation in playing how you want to play.

So let's say you get a lvl 7 rune, socket it, and u dont get the effect u want, You can SALVAGE this rune, for some other awesome stuff...Like if u salvage 5 lvl 7 runes, you can craft the lvl 7 rune of your choice..

I think this is actually a pretty clever idea. You still get the random effect that some people like, but there's a system in place to avoid endless farming without ever getting what you want that makes other people hate the idea of the random effects. I think this would be a great compromise...thoughts?

So, what you're saying is that, if my Barbarian spins around like a whirling dervish, using two weapons at once... he's going to get identical stat gain to a Barbarian who uses huge two handed axes and big, brutal attacks? It doesn't fit thematically and it's an arbitrary decision.

Here's what this system really is. This isn't some next-level game design. This is almost identical to Final Fantasy 1.

ETA: And you still had to make all of the same decisions in Diablo 2 about your character (what skills you were going to use, how you were going to use them, etc) but you also had to consider many more things.

It wouldn't fit thematically in D2. Attributes in D3 have been fundamentally changed. They no longer represent your character in a physical sense. There's no Strength or Dexterity. Regardless of what weapons your Barbarian is using, he's going to want more Attack (to increase his damage) and Precision (to increase his crit chance). So yes, they'll both get identical stat gains. And it fits thematically.

Quote from Jay Wilson »

Our combat system is really based around having somewhere between 4-6 skills.

Diablo 3 isn't a game where spamming one skill all the time and (maybe) having a backup in case of immunities is going to fly. Don't be naive by thinking that D2's customization depth was particularly immense. It was visionary for its time.

What is the point of the leveling system without the ability to choose how you want your character to be stronger?

You choose how you want your character to be stronger by choosing which skills you use and by choosing which Rune effects you want to place in those skills and choosing when, why, and how to utilize those skills most effectively for the playstyle and build you've chosen.

Why not increment your abilities based on what part of the game you're at? Since we're going to be max level around the time we hit the end of the game, why not just remove levels and then every time we hit a rebirth fountain (or whatever they're called) we get stronger?

The leveling system offers a sense of character progression. If you've defeated Hell difficulty and you decide to go back into a normal game for one reason or another, is your character and all his/her skills supposed to get weaker? What's the point in that? What's the difference between hitting a rebirth fountain and gaining a level? Ignoring the fact that this system would be a nightmare to actually implement into a game for the reasons mentioned above, it devalues the character. A character created 10 seconds ago could be of equivalent power to one created 2 years ago just because they're in the same zone? That doesn't make sense.

Right, and the fact that you had to explain to me that the game spends my points for me (thanks, I really enjoy automatized) is a needless complexity.

It's easier to say "You level up, you get a point, you spend the point in what you want and then you can find runes which modify your skills" than it is to say "You can choose X number of skills and you get no points and then there are these runes that you can put in your skills to modify them but they're locked in to the skill you put it in but you can take them out."

That's where the confusion is. There's needless complexity in a system that isn't complex, and it's foreign to both Diablo and the genre.

I guess I have to disagree. The process of gaining a level, which awards you a skill point, which you then have to choose between 24 possible choices on where to spend it, and then actually manually, physically doing so is actually quite a bit more complicated than "as you level up, you get stronger." That's how the system works. The higher your level, the stronger your skills. How is that needlessly complex?

The 6-Skill cap is there to create and encourage build diversity. Diablo 3 (like its predecessor) is a game largely built on character customization. Passive Skills, Runes, attributes & itemization, etc. all play into this as well. Having customization systems with depth is what this game is all about. It may be difficult to grasp the concepts since we're all on the outside looking in, but I think once you're actually playing the game, it will make much more sense and your feeling that all these systems are "needlessly complex" will be out the window. They may be complex, but it's certainly not needless. It's the heart of the game.

I don't really like this system, the current rune system allows you to personalize your spells as you want, you want that lazor to burn things? Add a crimson rune. With the planned system you'll find a rune and bind it to a spell and you may dislike the effect, you may find that this doesn't suit your playstyle.

But the rune isn't permanently locked into your skill. You can still take it out and try again with the next rune you find.

So, for example, if you put an unattuned Rune into your Magic Missiles and it rolls an Indigo effect (which adds additional missiles per rank), if you later decide to take that Rune out, it will forever remain a Magic Missile splitting Rune, unusable in any other skill. Even this isn't completely set in stone though, as they've hinted that they might add a functionality to the Mystic to wipe effects off Runes.

Wont we be able to wipe effects over and over again until we get the perfect effects?

Concievably, yes. But, the mechanic doesn't change just because you wipe the effect off. Let's say, for example, you have a Rune in your skill that provides the effect you want and you get a stat bonus of +5 when you know the possible range is +1-10. If you wipe that Rune to try to get a better stat bonus, when you resocket it again, you might not even get the same effect, let alone the possibility that the stat bonus changes or, if it stays the same, rolls a lower number than what you had. So it's possible, but it's definitely a risk. And obviously, there will be costs associated with it, though we don't really know the specifics.

There aren't skill points, but there are skills. Now we simply pick the skills and they automatically level up for us?

Basically, your character has access to all his/her class skills. However, you can only actively use 6 of those skills at a time. Choosing those 6 skills from your pool of skills (I believe each class has 24) is the essence of building your character. Your skills will then scale either with level (which is really no different from D2, except that in D2 when you leveled up, you got a skill point to increase your skills. Now it's just automatic. Think of it as the game spending your skill point for you, except that it can put a point in all of your skills instead of just one.) or based on weapon damage. Your attributes will further increase the effectiveness of your skills.

Which brings up another question, If you go ahead and rune a skill and than decide to swap that skill for something else does the rune stay with that skill or will you have to take the rune out and keep it for later or potentially trade it?

Hmm, good question. I'd assume that it would just stay in the skill, but if not, we've got a much bigger stash in this game.

It would be easy to balance 1. because it would be a skill-specific bonus, however when it came to 2. they would probably want to make the stat bonuses or benefits class-specific. For instance say you just socket a rune into a wizard's magic missile and you got +4 strength, you would probably get pissed. (unless of course they give good reason for a wizard to have some extra strength.) Or as a wizard you got that extra lightning damage on your weapon strikes which is the opposite of what you wanted when you're blasting enemies with spells most of the time.

It's important to remember that they've revised the attribute system so that all attributes will be desirable (or at least beneficial) to all classes. I'd recommend checking out Attributes for more information.

I think the added stats should be looked at like more of just an added bonus "oh cool my rune gave me x stats" and not base runes solely on what stats they do give. Thats how the majority of people will play, there will be the few however that will be very particular and go looking for the exact right rune stats for their build.

Well, min/maxers definitely won't be settling for just any additional stats, but I definitely think that it's a cool system. I don't think it's actually confirmed yet if the stat bonuses will just be general bonuses or if they'll only apply to the skill the rune is in. I think if it only applied to one skill, it would allow the player to tweak their individual skills more (maybe you want +Attack on your AoE skills so they do more damage, but you want Precision for more crit or increased crit damage on your single-target skills) and not getting the exact stats you want wouldn't be as game-breaking, since it only affects one of your 6 skills. How that would play into buff/CC/utility skills is another question...

will it be free for all users or you have to own sumtin or pay for it to get access to it? Am not quite informed about betas...

Basically you opt-in your Battle.net account, submit your system specs, and, if you're lucky, you get chosen for a key. So no, you don't have to pay or own anything (besides a computer, obviously, but it seems like you've probably got that covered), but it's not exactly for all users either. But anyone who wants in has an opportunity to get in.

Yeah, if you can play guitar that well, you can write a little something that will fit with the theme and ambiance of the game and not make it too overpowering or distracting. I hope we hear something from him in game.

Best thing would be through tabs that only showed one item type at once, but that is not possible I guess

Something along these lines has actually been planned, we just haven't really implemented it yet. While the Affixes page itself is meant to be more of a master list, if you check out Axes (Diablo II), you can see that we do have a collapsible list of prefixes that can occur on axes. The plan is to do that for every kind of item page, we just haven't gotten around to it.

Unfortunately, the way the affixes are set up in the game makes it difficult to present them in an incredibly organized fashion. The only real options are to do it the way we have now or to split each affix up into the different level "tiers," if you will. The second option isn't really ideal either because then you can have a very large number of lines of the exact same affix on the same item(s), so it begins to get cluttered. Before making the page, we did have a rather lengthy discussion about the best way to arrange the information (the relevant discussion starts on page 4 if you're interested). Now, since I was the one who did most of the work on that particular page, I may be somewhat biased, but once you get used to reading the nomenclature that is set up, it's actually quite easy to understand. I did my best to explain how to read all the numbers at the top of the page. There's a lot of information on the page, so no matter how it's set up, it all has to be there and there's only so many ways that the information can be presented. Unfortunately, this means it's going to be cluttery, one way or another.

Well, we'll obviously have to wait for more information before we're able to determine how we'll be handling adding the skills to the wiki. But, I'd assume for the moment that there'll be one page for each skill with info regarding the rune effects all on the same page.

Official Blizzard Quote:

It's staggering really, even to me still. Those are all unique in their visuals too, which is important to note. Sure some of them may be simple color shifts but most of them are unique mechanics with completely unique visual effects. It's crazy. Big up to our effects guys.

Official Blizzard Quote:

Gems do stack. Right now it's 10 but that could go up as we see fit. They have a good chance of being used in other ways aside from simply being socketed, something that would siphon them out of the economy. Maybe crafting. We like them remaining as something you have to visit the Jeweler artisan to combine. We don't want it to be annoying or take a lot of time though. We also don't anticipate someone visiting one with 19,000 gems looking to upgrade all the way to level 14.
They don't have a level requirement so we do intend to see them used as a way to twink new characters, or allow people to buy into gemming up a bit earlier on if they have the gold.
Our current anticipation is that it will take the hardcore players quite a while before they start maxing out their gems, long enough that they won't see level 14 gems in all slots for all of their gear before we throw something new at them.

Use in crafting and twinking seems like it makes sense and is a good way to keep their demand high, even years after release.

They could have just as easily meant that the resources are unique to each character within the game, not that they're some mind-blowing, insanely new ideas just hitting the game-o-sphere. I'd have to read the context of the phrase. I forget when it was first mentioned.

Yeah, it's becoming obvious that this is what they meant by unique; I don't exactly remember the context myself, but for some reason I've been thinking we'd have something new, cool, and maybe even somewhat mind-blowing.

You guys have to realize that it's very hard to come up with something new for something so simple.

Well...sort of. It's really, really easy to come up with new ideas for the resources. The sky's the limit. What's challenging is making sure it works and is balanced. Obviously, we don't know everything about the iterative process on the different resource systems, but I'd like to know how many different ways they tried to make Instability work. Was it always just a buff? Also, we don't know what they worked with before the original announcement of the game, but has the Witch Doctor ever used anything besides mana? Did they even try?

Pretty cool, I'd definitely recommend looking through the other pictures in the link that Seth posted, it shows a bunch of different angles. The guy has also put in a really cool video walkthrough of the area here that gives a better sense of the scale. Also, there's a robot in it.

Then what was the City/Ruins displayed in the trailer? It sure did look like Ureh.

It is. It was originally intended to be in the game, but has been cut. The fact that we have that picture up on our wiki is no indication of what's actually going to be in that act. It's just a placeholder graphic since, as no information has been released, we have nothing to go by. I'm sure when more info is available, that image will be changed to something more appropriate.

Seriously. My mustache, Dmitri, makes an appearance for a week or two every year. It's never a good idea, but it's always awesome. I've got a buddy who's turning 18 in May, so Dmitri'll probably have to make a comeback then...as if taking a fresh 18-year old to a strip club isn't seedy enough...:bleh:

As a hypothetical backstory for Diablo 3's male Wizard, Redemption of the Vizjerei follows our hero-to-be as he begrudgingly embarks on a journey with a mysterious old man to confront his personal demons in the lands of his childhood and forestall the return of the Burning Hells to Sanctuary. Excerpt:

He lowered his hand from his face and ran it tenderly across the scarred and pitted surface of the old table. “This could be your chance for redemption, son. For setting right the ill deeds you have committed.” So he did know. But how? I slowly lifted my head and peered once more into his glimmering eyes. My lips parted to speak, but again he raised his faintly trembling hand and I was struck dumb. “There is more to your fate than even you know. This journey – if you like to think of it as such – is not one of adventure. Rather, it is one of erudition and deliverance. Your personal salvation, as well as that of the entire mortal realm of Sanctuary, rests in your hands...”